The Blog Page for Northwest Arkansas Atheists

Morning Meditations #88: A Good News Sunday

Ivy went through the next step of her super secret omelet ninja training today. She will be the deadliest of omelet ninjas.

Another Sunday is upon us. The weekend, which had some interesting twists and turns, will end one of the most productive weeks in years.

One of my musician clients landed a sponsorship deal that will make the venue we work out of even more friendly. Which isn’t to say that this venue hasn’t been friendly, quite the contrary. But, the addition of a sponsorship (the first of many to come we hope) along with the residency at this venue has been a huge windfall. It is rare that I bathe in good news, and while that is some of it from this week, there is more.

I have also been recruited. “To what!?” I can hear the excitement in your voice, Gentle Reader. This position is right up my ally, and I admit, it feels absolutely amazing to actually be using my education in a productive way. I mean, this gig lets me work with authors from around the country and claim, here it comes, a co-contributing editor position from here on out on my résumé. And as it stands right now, I have written a few thousand words towards contribution, and I have already read and edited thousands more words from these dedicated and brave free-thinking authors. To say “I love the position” is an understatement.

The only set back is that when editing thousands of words a day, when does one find time to compose their own work? I am a contributing editor after all, and it would be immoral for me to fail to utilize this for myself. Not to mention, my team is counting on heavy duty work from me. I have attempted to balance this out, unsuccessfully thus far, well until late last night and this morning that is.

Here I sit on a Sunday morning, no new articles to edit in my inbox as I am already on top of the game, just typing away with my 8th-of-a-cup of coffee (I haven’t made magic coffee in a couple of months, sticking to black coffee, as it is quicker and also delicious. I got a handle on that cigarette thing too. I am not a relapse candidate, but the holiday season this year nearly broke me. Yet, I here I sit, unafraid). This MM alone will not be alone in being be finished today. Bringing me to my last piece of good news for this morning, and luckily this is more news about my writing.

I know I don’t do very many gratitude posts, but today deserves one. I have begun the first entry of my large work from years of hunting through piles of meta data: books and essays, journals and testimony. I don’t want to talk about it too much, as we all know airing too many of your goals and ideals can set one up for eventual failure, but I will say this. Those of you who are waiting for may larger scale scientific work, this is the notification that the work is now begun. I hope to finish the first “chapter (for lack of a better term)” today, as I am close to having it near the editing stage. Another feature for which I am grateful is—I won’t have to edit it all by myself. I get help via the new team.

So grateful for this opportunity. And grateful for all of you taking this journey with me. I know my work is not often the happiest place to be, but my point of blogging isn’t to achieve happiness, it is to expose the day to day challenges of what vulnerable, wise, and healthy modern masculinity might look like. I don’t know if I meet the challenge, but I am certain I try.